


Foxhill Part III  - Blood Moon

by Blaumeise



Series: Foxhill [7]
Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M, Magic, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29631696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blaumeise/pseuds/Blaumeise
Summary: This is the third book in the Foxhill series.
Relationships: Axl Rose/Slash | Saul Hudson, Duff McKagan/Izzy Stradlin
Series: Foxhill [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980472
Comments: 69
Kudos: 24





	1. A New Life

The sound was impossible to ignore. High, shrill, piercing, transmitting the agony of a lifetime into a world that was dark and cold and lonely. In fact, it was rather warm in the room and the person proclaiming her displeasure hadn’t known a lonely moment in all of her short life. But when one’s life experience comprised no more than three months, a night lasted for an eternity and it was very well possible that the darkness would never end. How should one know? There hadn’t been enough sunrises yet to be sure that the next one was a given. 

Izzy pulled his pillow out from under his cheek and pressed it over his head. There. Better. The noise was still audible but sufficiently dampened to not fully wake up. Unfortunately, now a hand jostled his shoulder and kept him from returning to sleep. 

“Izzy!” Duff whined. “Your daughter is crying.”

“She is always crying,” Izzy muttered under the pillow. 

“Then get up and make her stop! Or at least … take her somewhere else.”

Duff’s voice was about as muffled as his own, meaning he too had upturned the natural order of mattress – pillow – head. 

“Izzy!”

Izzy considered his options. Sweet, gentle, love of his life or not, Duff was bigger and stronger than he was, and kicking him out of bed to put an end to the howling was not beyond him. 

Said howling had now taken up another cadence. If Abigail Agatha Rose didn’t want to become the third owner of _A. Rose’s Herbs and Spices_ \- or rather _A. A. Rose’s Herbs and Spices_ she could attempt a career as an opera singer. Or maybe pearl diver. The lung capacity was all there. 

Duff’s pushing grew more insistent and Izzy gave up. He crawled out of bed, landed on all fours, struggled to his feet, and stumbled over to where his beloved daughter was screeching her tiny head off. It was the third time this night. 

The first time he had changed her nappies and thought it was a good thing that he made a living by slaying slimy and smelly creatures. It had prepared him sufficiently for this sudden change in his life. 

The second time, he had taken her down to the kitchen to warm her milk bottle. Two days after her birth, Axl had woken up male and cried with relief. Unfortunately, it had put a sudden stop to Abbie’s food supply, too, and they had to hunt down a wet nurse. Now Kate picked up their daily ration every morning on her way to the shop.

It also meant that Axl saw absolutely no reason why Abbie should sleep in his bedroom. 

“I carried that little parasite around for nine months,” he had said when he had demanded that the crib would be relocated to Duff’s and Izzy’s room. “While she was busy destroying my body to grow her own out of it. Now it’s time for your nine months of service.” 

Nine months of utter misery, Izzy had wanted to say. For everybody. But he had been wise enough to bite his tongue because once or twice over said nine months he had made the mistake to say that people got children all the time and didn’t make everybody suffer for it. 

Axl had hated every single moment of pregnancy and sworn a holy oath that, in case they had to get rid of another demonic statuette, Izzy could burn his soul by using demon energy. 

If Izzy was honest, when giving in to the new arrangement, he had counted on Duff’s sweet, gentle nature and his utter delight about the new housemate, to make those nights bearable for him. But Duff had surprised him once again and declared that it was not his child and he saw no reason to interrupt his sleep if the real parent was in the same room. 

However Izzy had expected life as a father to be, this was not what he had envisioned. In those vague and blurry pictures provided by his imagination, there had always been a woman somewhere who would take care of all this feeding and nappy changing and getting up in the middle of the night, while he would teach his daughter – she had always been at least ten in those fantasies - how to create fire with a snip of her fingers and take her on her first journeys through foreign dimensions. And maybe a forbidden world or two. 

That one time he had suggested that perhaps they could get Kate involved – she was female, after all, didn’t that predestine her for this type of job - Axl’s reaction had been … unambiguous. He had fathered that screaming handful of eternal misery, he would be the one to cater to its every whim. Didn’t he remember that heartfelt little speech during which he had promised support? 

“Support!” Izzy had yelled back, “Not eternal servitude!” 

“Welcome to the world of fatherhood,” Axl had said and put the deafening, soggy, red-faced … something into his arms. 

So, in the line of duty, Izzy picked Abbie up and carried her down to the kitchen. Her body tensed and strained against his hold, her tiny hands were balled into angry fists and her face had obtained the colour of a freshly cooked lobster. Eyes squeezed shut from exertion, she screamed her fury through half of Foxhill. 

It was the stupid name, Izzy thought. Nobody in their right mind named their daughter Abigail Agatha. But, if he was honest, over the whole course of bringing their personal bundle of joy into this world, Axl had not been in his right mind for more than maybe five minutes. A name like that had to be expected. 

Izzy had suggested that they call her Lily, but Axl had claimed that only a blithering idiot would punish his daughter with two flower names. Which had rammed the realization home that, father or not, Izzy wouldn’t get a say in anything that pertained to the fruit of his loins. 

This baby would be Axl’s and Axl’s alone, and he might hand her over for feeding and nappy changing but definitely not allow anybody to make any important decisions. Like ensuring the poor girl grew up with a decent name. 

He had retaliated by calling her, Abbie. Duff, being burdened with a stupid nickname himself, had quickly switched to Abbie, too, and Slash didn’t give a toss for as long as she rewarded him with delighted goo-goo-noises whenever he brought her a mouse. Alive, of course, so that she could learn to hunt them down herself. At three months, he was worried by her lack of a killer instinct. 

Sometimes Izzy wondered if he was living in an insane asylum. But maybe he was, and nobody had cared to enlighten him because he was one of the inmates, and pretending to be a demon-hunting wizard was part of the fantasy world he had created around himself. 

Axl had eventually realized that there were only so many syllables you could bring up when addressing somebody whose vocabulary consisted of “da” and “goo” and had first contented himself with Abigail and then given in for good. 

Abbie Rose, at least, had an acceptable ring to it. Not that Izzy would ever admit it in Axl’s presence.

The kitchen was cold and dark and smelled of rising bread and dying fire. He snipped the light to life and checked that the tiles were not covered in ice. They had definitely felt frozen under his naked feet. And that in May. 

The baby propped over one shoulder, Izzy rekindled the embers in the oven to warm her milk, but he didn’t have much hope. She was not a good eater. 

“Your fault,” Axl had said when once again he had ended with more milk on his dress than inside her stomach. “Of course, she eats like a bird, she’s your daughter through and through.”

Expecting this to turn into a lengthy undertaking, he took baby and bottle to the library and crashed on the couch. To his own surprise, he was lucky. After less than twenty minutes of lamenting the misery of her existence, Abbie realized that screaming made hungrily and, with an expression of utter disdain, took the teat between her lips. 

Her eyes opened and looked huge and round and dark into the world that burdened her with so much hardship. For inexplicable reasons, her hair was blond. Very blond. Axl had taken it almost as a personal affront. If she grew up to be tall and lanky, he would have to have a word with Duff. 

Izzy pulled his naked feet up onto the couch and settled Abbie more comfortably in the bow of his arm. At least she had shut up.

He watched her drink, watched her tiny hands reach for the bottle in front of her face, watched her feet kick against the blanket he had wrapped around her, and then it happened again: 

Emotions crashed over him like waves against the cliffs during a winter storm. He loved everything about her, every single finger, every single toe, her dirty nappies, and her stupid name. Never in his life had he experienced something like this. 

He loved Duff from the bottom of his heart, but for this angry little witch in the making, who seemed to consist of nothing but lungs, poop, and a strong will, he would eviscerate himself. And smile while doing so. Izzy didn’t remember his parents and consequently, he didn’t miss them much. But for once he would have liked to ask them if they had ever felt something similar for him, and in case they had, how they had managed to survive it. 

Exhausted, he closed his eyes for a second. 

When he opened them again, Axl stood next to him, rocking Abby in his arms. 

“Slept on the couch again?” he asked. “You’re spoiling her if you let her sleep on top of you all the time." 

Izzy yawned and shrugged, pretending it had been intentional. And who was Axl to chastise him? He may believe that between the two of them he was the reasonable parent, but it was only a façade. Under the pretense of being sensible and rational, Axl Rose was as besotted with his daughter as Izzy was. 

“What’s the time?” he asked.

Something hard pressed into his ribs and he pulled out the bottle from under himself. It was blessedly empty or he would now be listening to a lecture regarding spilled breastmilk on the couch. 

“Almost seven.”

Too early to be awake, too late to get more sleep. Sometimes Izzy wished it was acceptable for a grown-up wizard to scream his misery into the world the way his daughter had no qualms to do. 

He went upstairs to get his revenge by kicking Duff out of bed, but Duff was already up and getting dressed.

“You didn’t come back,” he said in this overly chipper early-bird-voice of his. 

“You don’t say.” Izzy eyed his bed with longing. Then he reached for his own clothes. 

“I think you’ve been wearing that shirt for a whole week now,” Duff said gently. As if he was talking to the inmate of an insane asylum. Izzy started to think he was on to something here. 

Izzy glared at him, but then he dropped the shirt, opened his wardrobe, and stared into it. What had he been looking for? Shirt or trousers? 

“Need help?”

Duff wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his shoulder. Once upon a time, Izzy would have quipped about the type of help, getting dressed or getting undressed, but just the idea that his good-looking, young, and well-rested lover might take him up on the offer, was enough to not risk whatever energy he had left. 

Yes, their sex-life was in shambles. Thank God, Duff was understanding. And not shy in using his left hand while Izzy lay apathetically next to him and wondered how people survived doing this year after year after year. He was with Axl. When the next demonic statuette had to go its way, he would open the gate to the demon dimension and sign his soul over to the dark side. 

“You coming down for breakfast?” Duff asked when he didn’t get a reply. 

“As soon as I found out which foot belongs into which shoe,” Izzy said, pretty sure that there were several pieces of clothing he had to put on before it was time for shoes. 

Duff kissed the back of his nape and let go of his waist. 

“You’re an awesome Dad,” he said before he collected Izzy’s dirty clothes off the floor. “You know that, right?” He returned once more, kissed him onto his lips, and left the room. 

“Yes,” Izzy mumbled, but he wasn’t so sure. He loved the little banshee more than could be normal, but there were times when he wondered if it wasn’t a good idea to press a pillow onto her face. Not that he was ever tempted to follow through, but, no matter how exhausted and desperate and sleep-deprived he was, weren’t thoughts like that a sign that something was seriously wrong with him? 

Absent-mindedly he rubbed the red twin spots at his left wrist. The vampire bite was fully healed, but sometimes it itched as if to ensure he would never forget what had happened. Claudius had surely left his mark on him. 

He had brought his worries up with Axl, just to make sure he didn’t accidentally kill their daughter in a fit of demonic possession, but Axl had told him to stop being melodramatic and if anybody was possessed by a demon, it was Abbie. 

Abbie wasn’t possessed by anything demonic. Izzy had made sure, right after her birth. Full aura reading and everything. She was simply a bad-tempered little witch with an amazing set of lungs. 

With a final sigh, he dressed in clean clothes. He even washed his face and picked up a brush to attack his hair, but stopped when he looked into the mirror to check the result. He hadn’t looked this tired since he had tried to kill himself by ramming a broadsword into his belly. The bags under his eyes were larger than the eyes themselves. 

Defeated, he tossed the brush onto the dresser and went down to join his whole, wide awake bunch of housemates for breakfast. 

Kate smiled sympathetically when he entered the kitchen and dropped down at his place. She was the only one who showed an ounce of compassion for his plight, mainly by making the tea strong enough to tar a ship's rump with it and doubling the number of eggs on his plate as if he was a nursing mother and required extra nourishment. He needed sleep, not more food! 

Slash was missing. 

Duff, on the other side of the table, already had his eyes on the additional eggs, but for once Izzy decided to eat them all, just to spite him. He was not usually this petty and nothing of this was Duff’s fault, but he could just once get up at night and take care of his stepdaughter. Oh yes, he was always ready to play with her and coo stupid noises into her face. He even changed her nappies without batting an eyelash and didn’t mind feeding her and carrying her through all of Foxhill to tire her out. He would do everything for her. As long as it did not mess with his sleep pattern.

Axl, the person who could be considered the mother of the cause for all this drama, was reading the newspaper. Abbie, nestled contently in his arm and making incoherent noises, pretended to be an adorable baby and not a hellspawn conceived during a ritual intended to channel demonic energy back into its home dimension. 

“Any plans for today?” Axl asked while Izzy attacked the mountain of eggs on his plate. 

“Maisie Milligan,” he replied through a full mouth. “Remember her? Of the nixie family? The one who never married?”

“You kept her foetus,” Axl said without looking up from his newspaper. 

“Yep, that one.”

“You kept what?” Duff asked. 

“Her foetus,” Izzy said. 

“What the hell for?”

Izzy swallowed eggs. “To grow a monster out of it. Before I knew that I could do that inside Axl's body.”

Axl let the newspaper sink and gave him a long, dark stare. He did not take kindly to anybody calling his daughter a monster. Except himself, of course.

“I met her yesterday,” Izzy went on. “She’s working outside Foxhill now. For some family up Tippton Road. Says they have a ghost in the attic and whether I could have a look. The family would be willing to pay.”

“Real ghost or rat infestation?” Duff asked. 

His face had obtained a slightly disappointed expression when he had realized that no further eggs would make it into his direction. Served him right. It was either food or sleep, nobody could expect to get both. 

“Maisie should know the difference,” Izzy said. “I’d say ghost.”

“Want me to take care of it?” Duff asked. 

Shortly before Abbie’s birth, Izzy had declared him ready to take on smaller cases on his own and ghosts usually fell into that category. 

“No, I’ll come,” he said. He needed to get out of the house. If he stayed, he would crawl back into bed to never emerge ever again. “We might have to spend the night,” he said out of an impulse. “Maisie said it was a very nocturnal ghost. Might not show over the day.”

Axl raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Maybe Axl, too, thought he deserved a night to himself, just him and Duff and a comfortable bed in some inn, although he would never admit it. 

“By the way,” Axl said and put down the newspaper “I’m back at full potential.”

Without forewarning, he lifted a hand, flicked it once at the wrist and a stray fork shot over the table and dropped down at the other side. Abbie squealed in delight and if he weren’t a dignified wizard, Izzy would have done the same. But as he was one, he just said: "About time."

Over the course of the pregnancy, Axl’s powers had inexplicably dropped. Not enough to force him out of business, but alarming nevertheless. 

They had tried to read up on it, but not much had come forward and as wizards were rare, there was nobody they could ask about direct experiences. Izzy had written to the only other wizard he knew personally, some guy in Wales, but he had only replied that upon becoming a mother a witch should care for her children and not about her powers, so who gave a damn? And, congratulations, and pity it was a girl, but maybe the next one would be a boy. 

He had burned the letter before Axl happened to stumble over it. 

One positive thing had come out of the depletion. When Axl had been due for his five-yearly-assessment, only a week before the little monster had been ready to encounter the world, he had been at an all-time low and passed without any issues. Luckily, the administration seemed to have similar ideas regarding witch-mothers as the guy in Wales and hadn’t ordered him to come for a repeat. 

Having him back at full capacity was reassuring. 

“Which reminds me,” Axl went on. “Lady Elvira has invited us for tea on Saturday. I accepted. In your name, too.”

“No!” Izzy dropped his fork. Then he pushed the plate over to Duff. Choking on eggs for the sake of being petty was all fine and dandy, but forcing food down his throat while Axl once again tried to hack his talons into his personal life, put a serious damper on his perseverance. “I’m not going.”

“It’s the third time she has invited us,” Axl said. “I can’t decline again. We owe her. Not only because she sent us tons of baby equipment, but also because having her as an ally is important. Now even more than before.” 

He juggled Abbie in the bow of his arm and made her laugh, just to ram home that if he refused to pay a visit to the all-important Lady Worley, he would deprive their adorable little angel of the future support she would surely need one day. Izzy glowered. He knew Axl was playing him. If needed, Lady Elvira would toss all of her considerable weight into the ring for Abbie anyway, no matter whether he would grace her vast halls with his presence or not. She was fond of Axl not him, and she wouldn't let Axl's daughter suffer. 

“She will only pester me about marriage,” he said. 

“Me, too,” Axl said. 

“But it’s not the same!”

Duff had stopped eating eggs and watched curiously. He thought all the marriage trouble was hilarious, but that would change once he would have to confess to his overly catholic mother that his lover had a child out of wedlock. With the woman in whose house they were living. Sodom and Gomorrah. It was pretty much what half of Foxhill was thinking, too. 

Izzy folded his arms in front of his chest and raised his chin, doing his best to look determined. He probably came across as a defiant teenager at best.

“She’ll give me these looks again. As if I had seduced you and dropped you to fight for your own. She thinks I’m the villain in all this!”

Just like Constable Carter, he thought silently. Foxhill, if he was honest, was divided. Fifty percent had always known that Axl was a harlot. The other fifty percent had always known that Izzy was a scoundrel. 

And then little Abbie had been born with that feathery tuft of blond hair and had added fuel to the rumour mill. What was really going on behind that respectable, little shop in Stakesby Road? Izzy wouldn’t wish his nose on his daughter, but it would at least convince people of her ancestry. Who had thought that such a little human being could be the cause for so much chaos? 

“You’re coming,” Axl said and returned to his newspaper. “For your daughter.”

And that, everybody knew, was enough to make Izzy Stradlin, magical investigator, wizard, and wanderer of the worlds, fold like a jack-knife. If his daughter’s future happiness depended on it, he would drink tea, eat tiny sandwiches, and suffer through Lady Elvira’s hints that summer weddings were always a lovely affair.


	2. Familiy Affairs

They left shortly after lunch. When Izzy came down to the shop, the bag with his ghost hunting equipment over one shoulder, Axl was balancing his books. 

The little working table was gone and had made room for a crib. Abbie owned about as many cribs as Hector owned baskets. Once she had grown out of them, they could open a furniture shop just for selling all her equipment. 

Duff stood next to it, watching the scene inside with barely concealed amusement. Slash, in cat form, of course, was licking Abbie’s naked belly with long, rhythmic strokes. At the same time, the baby had a firm grip on his tail, sucking at its end as if it was a pacifier. She would start puking up hairballs if they didn’t take care. 

“Ready?” Izzy asked. “Or would you rather stay and partake in the grooming ritual?”

“Jealous?” Duff asked. 

He smiled, sunnily as he always did, and once again Izzy wondered why he had decided to stay with his miserable old ass. He may be past his insecurities regarding Duff’s intentions, but it didn’t make the whole situation any less ominous. Now he had added a bastard child to the already unfavourable mix and Duff was still there, still happy and still loving him. Izzy looked at the bastard child, doing his best to not show how hard it was to say good-bye to her. 

“Jesus Christ, Slash, take the tail out of her mouth,” Axl suddenly said. He tossed his pencil angrily onto the ledger and headed over to save his baby. “All that hair is a choking hazard. Do you think I went through all the trouble of birthing her, just so you can kill her before she’s old enough to crawl?” 

He picked Slash up and deposited him on the counter. 

“How is she supposed to learn to ever be content with herself if you or you,” he pointed at Duff, “or you,” and Izzy “is all over her all the time? It’s no miracle she starts screaming as soon as she is left on her own for more than a minute.” 

Duff, the picture of guilt, stuffed his fists into this pocket. Izzy did his best to look innocent. Hands on his hips, Axl gave them a long, dark look before he returned to his books where he wiped half of Slash off the page he had been writing on. 

“Heavens, what is it with your tail! Does it lead a life independent from the rest of your body?”

Slash made a step to the side, but he had the benefit of being a cat and looking enigmatic no matter what he was doing. Sometimes Izzy envied him. 

“Enjoy your night out,” Axl said. He picked up the pencil, only to drop it right back to where it had been lying before. With a sigh, he closed the ledger and returned it into the drawer. He probably hadn’t slept too much either. Abbie’s howling penetrated walls, galaxies, and foreign dimensions. 

“It’s work, Axl,” Izzy said mildly. 

“Yes, tell yourself that,” Axl replied, not looking at him. 

Izzy rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to step up to my role as …” provider was the wrong word, “… contributor,” he finally said. 

Axl snorted, but now he did look up, his gaze a little questioning. Asking silently if it was an issue. It was, no matter how much he liked to joke about it. It had come as another one of all those bizarre realizations that had crashed over him after his daughter’s birth. He was not able to provide for her. And it bugged the hell out of him. 

For the last ten years, he had lived off Axl’s generosity. The money he added to the household budget might pay for what he and Duff were eating – not even in full, considering Duff’s appetite – and maybe add a bit to the running costs of magical supplies, but that was all. It had never been an issue. Not even when Axl had started nagging him about getting an assistant and that they, yes, - _they_ \- would be able to afford one. At least if he was willing to work for food and lodging and a bit of pocket money. 

Izzy was convinced the whole assistant idea had been born out of Axl’s secret project to socialize him and he had been determined to reject each and every candidate until Duff had stood there all eager and pitiful and with a dark shadow over his aura. 

Axl may not believe in karma, but Izzy did and he had known, sending Duff away would one day take a turn and come back to haunt him. 

“Come on, let’s go,” he touched Duff’s shoulder and pushed him towards the door, more to put an end to Axl’s inquisitive look than because they were in a hurry. 

The sun cast a few rays through fluffy white clouds and here and there the blue of the sky was already visible. As usual, Izzy was glad to be outside. His days in a Fae prison had left him with a whole conglomerate of bizarre fears. At the beginning, he had been unable to leave the house, afraid that somebody might discover his true nature, that he would be arrested and locked up again. 

Later, when he had realized that he was still considered to be a beggar and vagrant and nothing important, it had turned into the complete opposite. Now being inside for too long woke the same type of fears that had once been caused by being outside. When they hit, no matter the weather, he took a hike along the cliffs, walking until his feet hurt and the wind had blown the dark clouds out of his brain. 

Duff enjoyed the sudden good weather, too. He always did and so Izzy was not surprised to see him tilt his face into the warmth and close his eyes in appreciation. Maybe that was Duff’s secret, no matter how small the joys around him, he soaked them all up and made the most out of them. 

Whenever he was on the road with Duff, Izzy noticed more of the surroundings himself and today was no different. Be it that a funnily shaped hat in the hatmaker’s display window, which was meant to hide horns or big floppy ears, caught his curiosity, or that his nose would twitch into the direction of one of the food vendors they passed, not much escaped Duff’s scrutiny. 

He was greeted by people who would maybe tip their hat if Izzy passed on his own or who would pretend, they hadn’t noticed him at all. Magical or non-magical, after two years Duff had become a more cherished part of the magical community than Izzy was himself and he was glad about it. Duff was a gregarious creature, not a worn-out recluse, and knowing he was well-liked and always had somebody to visit or go out on a drink with, made Izzy feel less guilty about his own lack of sociability. 

When they reached the border of Foxhill, he fought his reluctance and made the step across. 

“I think about taking council jobs again,” he said to distract himself from the bad feeling that settled in his stomach each time he had to visit the non-magical parts of town. 

“Huh,” Duff made and blew out his cheeks. “Are you sure?”

Izzy shrugged. “I guess they would take me back.”

“Yes, of course.” Duff turned his attention from vendor carts and display windows to him. His brown eyes looked faintly puzzled and Izzy tried to gauge if it was due to curiosity or disapproval. Both could go hand in hand with him. “But you were adamant to not work for that backstabbing bastard Graves anymore.”

“We can’t prove anything.” Izzy fiddled for a cigarette and lit it. 

Duff pushed his hands into his coat pockets and cocked his head. He wasn’t buying it. Another problem with Duff, he was smart. And very good at smelling bullshit. 

“I could use the money,” he admitted, words hopefully too unclear around the cigarette to be fully understandable. 

“But we’re making more than before.” Duff threw up his hands. “I mean, yes, the time of overpriced rat chasing in mansions is pretty much over, but there are still quite a few well-paying jobs trickling in.”

“Still.” Izzy refused to explain the reason. At least for another five minutes because then Duff would make him spill. 

Duff kept silent, but his attention had turned from food vendors to the tips of his boots, which meant, the discussion wasn’t over for him. 

“It’s about Abbie,” Izzy admitted with a sigh. “I mean … sure, right now she’s just this tiny baby who doesn’t need more than a bit of milk and people who carry her around and clean up her messes.”

“She won’t be much more for quite a few years,” Duff replied softly, his attention shifting from his battered footwear back to Izzy. “What do you think she might need?”

Izzy shrugged. She could get sick. Axl could get sick. Duff could get sick because ever since Abbie he suddenly worried about Duff’s wellbeing, too. When his foster father had been sick towards the end, the bills he had racked up within a few months had left him homeless. He had been homeless after the London pogrom, at only eight years old. He had been homeless when Giles had found him. And when Axl had graciously taken him up, he had been homeless, too. It seemed to be a pattern in his life. A baby needed a roof over her head. 

He didn’t say any of that aloud because it was ridiculous but he had regular nightmares about being out in the snow with Abbie in his arms. When he looked down at her, her face was still and her lips all blue. Then he woke up with a jolt, afraid he would suffocate while his heart was beating like crazy. Although he knew that it was only a stupid nightmare and not a vision, the fear refused to leave. 

The other issue that worried him, however, that was a real one. 

“Abbie is a full-blooded witch,” he said. “Or as good as. Fae blood is about as high on the magical scale as wizard blood, so all non-wizard blood coming in is one quarter from Axl’s side. It’s safe to call her full-blooded.” 

The law would definitely consider her full-blooded, although Axl was registered under ‘unknown ancestry’ and he himself was listed with his new name as Mr Stradlin’s real son. Still, the child of a witch and a wizard would always be considered full-blooded, no matter what other denominations might have been mixed in a generation back. 

Duff didn’t reply, meaning he didn’t get what he was trying to explain and prompted him to go on. 

“Most wizards and witches are half-blood. Simply because there are not enough of us around. The child of one of us will always come out witchy, no matter who the other parent is. If for example, Slash was the father, Abbie would still be a witch and not a shapeshifter.”

“And?” Duff prodded. “Does that make a difference? Like, will she be more powerful?”

“Can’t say yet.” 

Izzy felt a sudden craving for opium. He took a drag from his cigarette to keep his hands from trembling and to his relief, it worked. He had a pretty good handle on it, sober for one and a half years now, but sometimes the need hit him out of the blue. Like now. 

“With halfblooded wizards it's easy. Whatever powers the parent has are usually what the child comes up with. Full-blooded is different. You have no idea about the abilities the kid might develop. It can get … totally crazy. And I’m adding Fae to the mix which doesn’t make it any more predictable. Add that Axl and I are very different in our abilities and Abbie could be … anything.”

“All right,” Duff said. His face was pensive, his brows pulled together. “But you said powers show around … ten or so.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s … ten years in the future. And you can’t even say if it will be a problem.”

Izzy sighed and tried to chew on his lower lip without letting go of the cigarette. It wasn’t working and he gave up. 

“It sucks if you have powers you can’t control,” he said. “I mean, there’s what I can show her and what Axl can show her and hopefully that will be all we need. But what if not? What if I need to find somebody to teach her how to … teleport things? Weave magical nets? Control the weather?”

“That’s possible?” Duff asked, excited as he always was when he realized that there was more to the magical world than he had known. “Control the weather?”

“Everything is possible,” Izzy said. “I don’t want her to get stuck with uncontrollable powers just because teachers are expensive. And the really powerful ones are. If we need a true expert to train her that would be too much, even for Axl.”

It wasn’t as far-fetched as it sounded. Her heritage was a liability. And while Duff considered Axl to be filthy rich, just because food was never scarce and it didn’t rain through the roof, didn’t mean he really was. 

“Aren’t you really powerful, too?” Duff asked. “I mean, if you can make so much money that way, would other wizards pay you for … training their kids?”

Izzy faltered and coughed when smoke got down his lungs the wrong way. 

“That … never crossed my mind,” he said. “I suppose I would suck as a teacher.”

Just the idea, having to deal with some annoying apprentice who had no idea what he was doing, trying to hammer the most basic principles into this brain. The thought alone made him shudder. 

“You’re teaching me,” Duff said. “And, sure, the beginning was a bit bumpy, but I think we’re on a good way. And you’re not only training me in rejecting spells but in how to shoot and care for weapons and how to defend myself and how to go on solving a case and …”

“Yes, yes, I get it.” He needed a moment to think. “I mean, there’s of course the part about me I do not want to become public knowledge.” And if there were any untrained wanderers out there, they probably did the same and hid it as well as they could. “The grip I have on dimensions is pretty good,” he added after a while “I suppose somebody might pay for instructions on how to do that. It’s annoying if you get pulled over without control.”

“What does ‘pretty good’ mean?” Duff tossed his head back and looked at the sky as if further explanations were written up there. “Let’s say, in Britain, how many wizards are as good at it as you are?”

Izzy took another drag and thought about it. “The court has a wanderer. She will be as good or better. Comes naturally to us.” He thought some more. “Then, the guy in Wales?”

Duff nodded. 

“I have my suspicions about him. I’m pretty sure he is one, too. But I can’t ask him, of course, because then I would give myself away.”

“That makes two,” Duff said. 

“Yes.” 

“Two, Izzy. In all of Britain. As good as you are.”

“Yes?” 

Duff sighed. “Just saying.” 

They had made it out of the densely populated quarters and took a shortcut along the cliff. The ground was too crumbly here for houses and so Whittlingsfield had retreated and made a bow until it crept closer to the edge again. 

Wind hit them as soon as they left the shelter of the town and Izzy raised his head to let it blow his hair out of his face. For a second, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the combination of sun and sudden chill on his skin. 

“All right,” Duff continued. “Money. I don’t need the raise. Keep it and put it aside. I know you don’t want to go back to do council work.”

“I…,” Izzy opened his eyes and stared at him. “No.”

“But …”

“You deserve it. You take a lot of cases on your own now. In fact, I should probably stop paying you and give you a steady percentage. As my partner.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Duff sighed and Izzy wondered what he had done wrong this time. 

Duff reached for one of his hands, the one that wasn’t holding the cigarette, and stopped him. He turned him around, took both his upper arms, and stared at him. Then, for inexplicable reasons, he went down on one knee. 

“Izzy Stradlin,” Duff said, his eyes earnest, his mouth determined. “Marry me.”

Izzy dropped the cigarette and quickly extinguished it with his heel before the dry grass caught fire. 

“I know it’s not possible,” Duff continued. “But just for the heck of it, pretend it was.”

“All right,” Izzy said slowly. He made a careful step backwards, hands coming up an inch all on their own while he considered the theory again that he was the inmate of an insane asylum. 

Duff stood up. “If I was able to marry you, I would. Would you, too?”

Izzy shrugged. “Sure,” he said. 

What else was there to say? It was a given that he loved Duff and wanted to spend the rest of his life with him. Marriage wasn’t something he had ever considered, simply because for the likes of him it was not in the books, but if Duff wanted to be married, there was nothing that kept him from doing it. Except for the law, of course, which was adamantly against it. 

“Then consider us married,” Duff said. “Which makes your daughter my daughter and whatever money we have left we can save up for that hypothetical teacher she might or might not need in fifteen years.”

There might be a suitable reply to that statement, but for the life of it, Izzy didn’t know what it was. He stood and stared until Duff started to check out his eyes, afraid they might roll back into his head as he headed off to foreign dimensions. 

“Really, Izzy, it’s no big deal,” Duff went on like only he was able to, making astonishing proclamations and brushing them off as nothing with the same breath. “But if you really worry about money, then you should allow me to advertise. That would bring in more than council work and will feel less like you’re prostituting yourself.”

Izzy thought about lighting another cigarette but knew it wouldn’t do anything to calm the need for what he really wanted. He stuffed his hands into his pockets instead. 

“You’re my partner,” he finally said. “If you want to advertise your services, that’s your decision to make.”

Duff’s face lit up like a midsummer bonfire. 

“And if you can’t solve one of your cases on your own, sure, I’ll help you out. But you’ll advertise under your name and it will be your cases that are coming in.”

It was all he would ever say about this, but Duff hugged him and squeezed the air out of him and once again Izzy wondered why Duff had to be so freakishly tall. 

“We need to exchange the sign,” he said when he was allowed to breathe again. “That’s what you get if you don’t force everybody to have the same name. New signs all the time.”

He shouldn’t have said it because now he got squeezed again. Long term, Duff would do more damage to his lungs than all the cigarettes ever could.

“Really, it’s no big deal,” he said, tossing his own words back at him. 

“Idiot,” Duff said tenderly and as they were alone on the cliff, he took his face into both hands and kissed him. 

“So, tonight at the inn,” Izzy said. “That’s gonna be our wedding night?”

He shouldn’t have said that either because now Duff squeezed him and kissed him and would have done other unspeakable things to him if they hadn’t spotted a man at the far end of the path. 

So now he had a business partner. And a daughter. And a … husband? Kind of. When he had always envisioned his life to be a lonely one. How had that happened? And why had nobody asked him if he wanted any of that? 

It should feel good, he supposed, but the pressure on his chest refused to lift. Sure, he had always felt a certain responsibility for Foxhill’s inhabitants, but there was a huge difference between making sure people survived in a hostile environment and making sure somebody thrived. Not only Abbie but also Duff. Yes, he was a grown-up man and ultimately responsible for his own happiness, but if he was so dead set on entwining both their lives, then Duff’s happiness turned into his responsibility, too. 

“Do you think Abbie is unhappy?” he asked the question that had been bothering him for weeks now. 

“Huh?” They had started walking again, but now Duff stopped once more. If they went on like this, they would never reach their destination. “Why should she be?”

“Because …,” Izzy took a deep breath. “She’s crying so much. And don’t tell me it’s because she’s a baby, she cries a lot more than a normal baby.”

“Yes, she does,” Duff admitted. “But, really man, the things you’re worried about.”

Izzy didn’t reply. Somebody had to worry about these things, it might just as well be him. 

“All right. Irish here.” He slapped his hand against his chest. “Huge extended family. Babies everywhere. Some cry more than others. Doesn’t mean they grow up any unhappier than the rest.”

And that was supposed to convince him? Duff seemed to realize that his argumentation was falling through and continued. 

“Given who her parents are, I guess it’s safe to say that she will grow into a hellion.”

“I hope so,” Izzy replied. She would be a witch in a world that despised magic, she would have to be able to assert herself. Meek and docile wouldn’t get her far. 

“She won’t make it easy for you, I suppose. Maybe she will be angry a lot and stubborn and hot-headed and try to ram her head through the wall like her daddy does all the time.”

Izzy grunted, convinced Duff was talking about Axl and not him. 

“Will she be happy? Who knows, but if not, then it’s got nothing to do with you making mistakes or because she wasn’t loved enough or because her family didn’t do all in their power to make her happy.”

“Maybe she’d be happier with a real family,” Izzy said.

“We are a real family?” Duff said and boxed him into his side. “Better, we’re a great family. Really, Izzy, I’d feel insulted if you suggested anything else.”

He kept his mouth shut after that, also because they were reaching the end of the cliff path and their destination was around the corner. Nothing about this talk had been reassuring. He had never been one to give a toss about people’s opinion, but suddenly he asked himself if their neighbours weren’t right when they blamed him for not stepping up to his responsibilities. And what would Abbie say, once she was old enough to understand? 

Izzy had been a beggar through all of his childhood. For him, it had been all right. So, what if money had been tight, food scarce, and all the scamming and travelling less than ideal for bringing up a child? His memories of Mr Stradlin were fond ones. His kind voice when he had told outlandish stories under a sky full of stars or while they had been wrapped up in the same blanket, too cold to sleep in their unheated room in Foxhill. His attempts to soothe him through all his nightmares and visions and sudden drops into foreign dimensions when it must have been just as scary for him as it had been for Izzy. His gentle reminders that opium surely wasn’t a solution for all that drama. 

He would never forget what the old trickster had done for him. 

But the idea that his little girl might have to live like that, hungry and cold every winter, not knowing where they would spend the night every summer because he had failed to provide for her, caused a bigger part of his sleep deprivation than Abbie’s crying ever could. 

He wondered if Mr Stradlin, although he hadn’t been his real father, had ever entertained similar thoughts. He hoped not and wished he had asked him before his death, just to reassure him that there had never been anything amiss in how he had been brought up. But if he had to choose between subjecting his daughter to such a childhood or prostrating himself in front of Benedict Graves and the whole bloody council, then he knew what he had to do.


	3. Ghost Hunt

Maisie Milligan may be the most unassuming of the Milligan sisters, but she had changed quite a bit since Izzy had met her all those years ago. Earning her own money instead of raising her countless siblings and deciding her own fate had done wonders for her confidence. Less shy, less diffident, she was able to look people in the eye instead of at their shoes. 

If she hadn’t provided him with his first case, he might not remember her at all, but as it was, seeing her made him smile. Gods had he been a mess back then. Scared of his own shadow and unable to take care of himself. He had never truly thanked Axl for what he had done for him. And he wouldn’t because if he did, Axl would ask him if he was delirious.

“Izzy!” she said as she opened the door. “You really came.”

Quickly she straightened her maid’s uniform and wiped a single strand of pale blue hair back towards her bun. It spoke for her employers that they didn’t ask her to glamour the colour over. Quite a few inhabitants of Foxhill worked badly paid outside their community, but most of the time, hiding their ancestry was a prerequisite so ingrained into them that they wouldn’t even think about leaving the house without a glamour amulet. 

“Of course, I did,” Izzy replied. “Why shouldn’t I? You know Duff?”

“No. Well, yes, by name of course.” 

She smiled and they shook hands. 

“So, where’s this ghost and what do you know about it?” Izzy asked as soon as they had set a foot over the threshold.

The house wasn’t big, a few more rooms than Axl’s had to offer, but definitely not a mansion. The backyard was big enough for a few vegetable beds and the ubiquitous chicken coop, but nothing else. Maisie took them upstairs and to the very back of the building. 

“Up here it’s the worst,” she said. 

Izzy looked around. The room had not so long ago been stripped to its bare bones and redecorated, yet the wallpaper hung in tatters and long scratches marred the floorboards. It was set up as some kind of working room, including sewing equipment, a tailor’s dummy and rolls of fabric all sorted neatly by material and colour on rows of shelving. 

“Mrs Reilly is a seamstress,” Maisie said needlessly. “She still takes orders, although not as many as she used to. They moved here a month ago. I knew right away that something was wrong with the house, but they wouldn’t believe me.”

Of course not, Izzy thought. 

“Any idea what this room was used as before it was turned into a sewing room?” he asked. 

“No. I’ve never been here before they moved. Oh, I think they are coming home,” Maisie said and looked out the door. “Yes, there they are. You can ask them yourself.”

But Izzy was already busy taking a closer look. He ignored the voices behind him, trusting that Duff would take care of the annoying part of the job - talking to the clients. Instead, he pulled a loose strip of wallpaper fully off. The wall behind it was rough and uneven and when he inspected it more closely, he noticed the same scratches that could be spotted all over the floor, just a lot less deep. Something was locked in here and tried to find its way out. 

“When did this start?” he asked and turned around. 

The owners, what was their name- Randall, if he remembered correctly, were younger than Maisie. The wife seemed to be in her early twenties and clearly expecting – did everybody have to procreate, he wondered – the husband a few years older, trying to look sober when in fact, he looked simply scared. They were dressed in neat clothes, doing their best to appear a step above the social class they belonged to. 

“Mrs Randall,” Izzy said. 

“Riley,” Duff hissed through his teeth. 

“Mrs Riley,” Izzy corrected himself. “Do you have an idea what this room was used for before you moved in? And why the ghost might be so determined to destroy it?”

He didn’t get a reply. Instead, he was met by two pairs of confused eyes and realized, that he had forgotten something. Introduction. Right. 

“This,” Duff said, his voice a little too poignant to not be exasperated that once again he had to smooth over Izzy’s lack of social skills, “is my … partner,” he then added with a sudden touch of delight. It was the first time he didn’t introduce him as his boss. “Mr Stradlin. He is the expert in matters like these.”

“Hm, yes, sorry.” Izzy stretched out his hand. “I had just started to wonder and … I suppose I forgot.”

Was he here to work or to make chitchat? Maybe he should ask people to pay him by the hour, then all this unnecessary politeness would at least serve some purpose. 

“Riley,” Mr Riley said as if they hadn’t just established his name. “We moved in a month ago.”

“Yes, Maisie told me,” he tried to spur them on a bit. 

“And after a few nights, we heard noises. At first, we thought it was rats.”

“These are no rats,” Izzy interrupted him. “So, it started immediately. What about the intensity? Steady? Increasing? What about the damage? Right away? Anything else like sudden temperature drops? Furniture moving?”

“That’s what Maisie said, that it’s not rats,” Mr Riley went on. He spoke slowly and a bit hushed, as if he feared admitting to a ghost in the house might make it appear. Sometimes it did, but Izzy was reasonably sure this was not the case here. “I admit, I was sceptic at first. I mean, a ghost? Really? But then one of my clients – I’m a carpenter – Mr Pritchard, Nigel Pritchard?”

Izzy cast Duff a helpless look. 

“The … ehm ... poltergeist,” Duff said. “Slash was a huge help.”

“Oh,” Izzy said, not sure which one he was referring to. Not that it mattered. “What did Mr Prentice say?”

“Pritchard,” Mr Riley corrected him. “Mr Nigel Pritchard. There were similar scratches in his floorboards, although not as bad as ours, and he told me, when I was there to take care of them, that it had been a poltergeist.”

Now Izzy knew exactly whom they were talking about. In fact, the scratches had been Hector’s fault. Hector’s nose was better than Slash’s and so Izzy had sent him off to find the rat hole. He also liked a good rat hunt just as much as Slash and they worked well as a team. Unfortunately, Hector had decided to change into pony size during a violent sprint, and his claws had left impressive marks on Mr Prentice’s floorboards. 

“I told Maisie about it, that she had likely been correct, and when she mentioned that she knew you, that sounded too good to be true.”

“Right,” Izzy said, resolving to just go on without a single answer to all of his questions. It was more often like this than one might think, endless tales about the spooky part, but no detailed assessment of what had been happening. “Does any of you know what this room was used as before you moved in?”

“No,” Mr Riley said. He took his wife’s hand in his in a pretence of manly protectiveness, when in fact she looked less scared than he did. “Is that important?”

“Might be. There’s usually a reason if a ghost is obsessed with one particular room. Where else do you have activity?”

“Nowhere, really,” Mrs Riley said. It was the first time she spoke at all. “And regarding your other questions: the intensity had been increasing and I wonder if it’s because of …,” She pointed at her belly. “Because sometimes I hear crying. Like a baby.”

“It’s a cat,” Mr Riley said. “You think it’s a baby because of your condition, but it’s the neighbour’s cat.”

Izzy sighed and Duff stepped onto his foot. Right. No sighing about their client’s stupidity. He did his best to not check out Mrs Riley’s aura, but then it happened all on its own. It had turned into an unhealthy reflex to check if the baby was all right. Doing it for Abbie was one thing, but for total strangers? What would he even do in case he noticed a problem? Tell them? Witches had been burned on the stake for less. 

Mrs Riley’s twins, however – did she know she was expecting twins? Probably not, she was not that far along - were doing well. 

“I suppose the best way would be to spend the night and wait,” Duff said. 

Sadly, Izzy agreed. No cosy bed at a cosy inn. No wedding night. Instead, they would have to camp out on the floor. 

“Does it come every night?” If not, he would start billing them by the hour. 

“At first it didn’t,” Mrs Riley said. “But it’s gotten more and more frequent. The crying is there every night now, although not the destruction.”

“It’s a cat,” Mr Riley said. “Most of the time, I don’t even hear it.” 

His eyes implored Izzy to not believe his hormonal wife’s nonsense, but Izzy was inclined to trust her. Axl was usually as deaf for magical vibes as was possible for such a talented wizard, yet during his pregnancy, he had been a lot more sensitive. All of a sudden, he had been able to sense other magicals from much farther away as was usual and it had driven him nuts. But then, everything had driven Axl nuts. Mrs Riley seemed a lot less irritable than Axl had been and she was double-pregnant.

“There is some type of presence,” Izzy said. 

It was very faint, not as strong as a spirit should be, which made him develop suspicions he didn’t like. 

“Could you ask the previous owners?” he asked. “If maybe this room has been used as a nursery? Or if somebody has given birth in here? It’s not important if we get the ghost tonight, but if not – might help to know a bit more about it.”

“I told you there was a baby crying,” Mrs Riley said triumphantly. 

“Was anything left in the room?” Izzy asked when he realized that once again, he wouldn’t get a reply. “Furniture? Toys? Whatever?” 

“No, it was completely empty”, Mr Riley replied. 

“Who did the renovations?”

“We did. I’m a carpenter, after all.” 

“Also, in this room?”

“No, strangely enough, there was nothing to do up here. The floor had been sanded and oiled and the walls were papered all new. Only the wallpaper won’t stick. Comes right off, no matter what we tried to keep it up.”

Izzy nodded. He wasn’t giving up hope yet, but he was pretty sure they would have to tackle the ghost directly. 

“Do you have a place to spend the night?” he asked. “Family, friends, perhaps?”

“Spend the night?” Mr Riley’s mouth stood slightly open. “Why?”

Izzy scratched the back of his neck. “Because we’re hopefully going to hunt down a ghost tonight.” Wasn’t it obvious? Did they want to stick around and watch? “They do tend to react violently when they’re baited.”

Mr Riley blanched. Mrs Riley protectively put her hands over her belly. 

Izzy stifled another sigh. He didn’t like it, but ever since Abbie’s presence had made itself known, pregnant women woke protective instincts. It had gotten better since Axl had returned to his normal self, but there had been a phase where the idea of anybody being too close to him had raised his ire. Weirdly enough nothing of that had been jealousy, just fear that somebody might stumble and fall onto him and crash that nascent human being inside his belly. 

Axl had told him he was a moron, and he had never mentioned his bizarre fears – and there had been a multitude of them – ever again. He had sometimes confessed them to Duff, who had broken into hysterics each single time. It was better now, no more worries that Abbie might break or fall or that he might wake up to find her dead in her crib. Now he mainly worried about how her life would be when she was - say twenty-five. 

In the end, the Rileys fled to Mrs Riley’s cousin and Duff and Izzy went to work. 

“Hopefully we’ll find the body and be done with it,” Izzy muttered as he followed the scratches over the wooden floor. “Got the crowbar?”

Duff pulled it out of their ghost hunting bag. Another one of Duff’s ingeniously practical ideas. Why pack a bag for each case when the same types of jobs always asked for the same equipment? They had a ghost hunting bag, a ghoul digging bag and half a dozen other bags ready to go and, to Axl’s dismay, cluttering the storage room. 

“You really think it’s a baby ghost?” Duff asked. 

Izzy had just jimmied the crowbar under the most scratched floorboard, but now he let go. 

“Happens more often than you’d think,” he said. “A baby that shouldn’t be there. A desperate mother. And because nobody knows what else to do, it ends under the floor. As long as the family still lives in the house, they just live with the ghost, but eventually, the last person who knew about it dies, the house is sold and … yes, there you go.”

“Want me to do it?” Duff held out a hand. 

“Huh? Think I’m not able to pry up a floorboard in my old age?”

Duff raised his eyebrows. “I think seeing a baby skeleton might upset you more than you like to admit. You’re still a bit weird about this whole pregnancy and birth issue.”

Izzy glared. “I’m completely normal.”

“Sure. Like, yesterday, when you asked me if Abbie might one day be disappointed that she was a witch and not a shapeshifter because Slash spends so much time in her crib and she might believe she was a cat and not a human and be totally dismayed once she had to realize it’s not true. And she might try to live as a cat anyway and that in itself wouldn’t be so bad if it made her happy, but being a witch was nothing she would be able to ignore because her powers would just roll over her and force her to acknowledge them.”

“She tried to purr!” Izzy reapplied the crowbar. 

“She made goo-goo, like always. It sounded weird because she had half her hand in her mouth.”

Izzy refused to discuss this any further. Once his daughter started to lick herself and toss paper scraps through the kitchen, Duff would see that he was right. They would have one hell of a time explaining to her what she was with all these different people around her. Not that he minded Slash’s help. He was astonishingly good at baby-soothing, and of all four of them, he was the one with the most time to spare. It might still be confusing for Abbie that she was raised by a cat.

He reapplied the crowbar and jimmied the board away, bracing himself for something tiny and fragile and dead. Because, of course, Duff was right. Picking up a baby skeleton would not be good in his current state of insanity. 

“And?” Duff bent over his shoulder to look into the gap. 

“Nothing.” Izzy sighed. That meant more floorboards had to go. 

About an hour later, they had destroyed half of the room. 

“It’s a good thing Mr Riley is a carpenter,” Duff said a little dismayed, while Izzy stared into a cavity between wall and floor. 

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and hesitantly placed his hand into the gap. The presence he had felt before, became stronger. It was so weak, the baby couldn’t have lived longer than a couple of hours. 

At three months, Abbie’s presence was still undetectable for both Axl and Slash, but Izzy had started to recognize special frequencies inside the hum she emitted. It had come as a surprise because so far, he had never been able to distinguish one magical person from another. They all just left this annoying buzz in his head. Abbie, however, had something like a signature and waking up to feel it take over the room was reassuring. 

This baby, however, must have been dead before it had truly been alive and the realization was more painful than he would have imagined. He pushed the thoughts away before he turned into one giant over emotional twerp and concentrated on the job at hand.

Whoever had sold the house had known it was there. If the whole house had been renovated, he would give the previous owner the benefit of the doubt, but one room? They had removed the flooring to get rid of the evidence, and probably set off the ghost activity like that.

He straightened his back and rolled his eyes when he noticed Duff’s sympathetic look. 

“They removed it. Probably before selling the house.” 

“Shouldn’t the ghost be gone, too?” Duff settled on the last patch of undestroyed floor and folded his legs under himself. “I mean, it’s attached to its bones, isn’t it?”

Izzy rubbed his neck. “Not necessarily. Sometimes, if the ghost stays for a long time in the same place, it latches onto something else. Usually an item like the crib, for example, or a favourite toy, if it’s a child. Only the house has been completely empty. Means, it attached itself to the building. But, yes, it will feel the missing bones and might try to follow while at the same time being held back by the environment. I suppose that’s why the scratching has started. And Mrs Randall isn’t all wrong either. Her pregnancy might influence a ghost baby.” 

Duff brushed his blond mop back with both hands and gave him a determined look. “We can’t burn down the house!”

In fact, Izzy would prefer it to what they would have to do, but Duff was right. It wasn’t a real option. 

“All right,” he said. “Ghost trap.”

“Really?” Duff did his best to look solemn, but his eyes were sparkling. 

Izzy scratched his head as he looked around. Then he pointed towards a large table which Mrs Riley apparently used to cut out her sewing projects. 

“We’ll get the table out of the way and set up the trap.”

“Why there?” Duff asked. He was already up and moving furniture. 

Izzy cast a look at the rest of the room. “It’s the only place where we have left enough floor intact.”

“I’ve wanted to use one for ages.” Duff squatted down and pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket. “I read up everything about them. And I think I know how they work. Only sometimes it sucks not being a wizard. I mean, I can set it all up and then I can’t use it.”

Izzy snorted. “Keep going like that and you’ll soon know more about magic than most magical people.”

Duff sat back on his heels and grinned. “If I want to be helpful, I should know the business, shouldn’t I?” 

Izzy had crammed the necessary ingredients out of the bag, but now he stopped and just watched. It was moments like these that reinforced why he loved Duff the way he did. Nobody in their right mind would be so eager to learn absolutely everything there was to know about powers he wasn’t able to use. It was a pity that he had no magic of his own. There he was on his knees, painstakingly working on a perfectly round circle, determining the exact cardinal points while his hair fell into his face, and he tried to keep his long legs from destroying his handiwork as he moved around. What was there not to love? 

“Wanna mix the bait?” Izzy asked. 

Duff blew solemnity to the wind, and his smile reached a new level of radiance as he nodded. He came over, knelt down next to the materials and rubbed his hands over his thighs. 

“Should I really? I mean, do you think I’m good enough?”

“You read everything about it, didn’t you?”

Duff picked up the bowl while his free hand tucked hair behind his ears. “I did,” he admitted. 

“Good.” Izzy stood up. “Just get it done. I’ll be back in a moment.”

“But…,” Duff stuttered, but Izzy was already out of the room. 

He went outside, sat down on the front step and lit a cigarette. If he remained in the room, Duff would feel as if he was watching over his shoulder. A ghost trap wasn’t that complicated and the only part a non-magical person could not do was to set it off.

It was slowly getting dark, the moon already rising high, and if they were lucky, they would be done before midnight. Enough time for some wild sex and restful sleep at Murphy’s Inn, the only one cheap enough to warrant the night out of house and that only because Murphy owed him a favour. Time to cash in. 

He snitched the butt into the gutter and went back upstairs. 

“Done?” he asked and looked at the trap, its instigator still squatting next to the bowl that contained the bait. 

Duff stood up and nervously chewed on a hangnail. 

“Maybe better check,” he said. 

“Nah, I trust you,” Izzy replied. 

He got a dubious look, but ignored it. All in all, the trap looked good. The circle was drawn, except for the small opening that would allow the ghost to enter, the candles were placed at the exact corners, the crystals pointed towards where the moon would be in its zenith, and the bowl with the bait stood in the exact middle. He could even see traces of the lines Duff had drawn to determine the centre point. 

Now all they had to do was wait until the moon did reach its zenith. In two and a half hours at around 11:30 PM. 

They packed up and took all that was not needed downstairs. Then they raided the kitchen while they waited. Once the Rileys noticed the destruction upstairs, they hopefully wouldn’t care about tea and sandwiches. It was a few minutes to eleven when Izzy heard a baby cry. 

“Hear that?” he asked and pointed at the ceiling.

Duff shook his head. 

“Right. Time to start, I’d say.”

They returned to the sewing room. Izzy lit the candles, infused the crystals and then they squatted in the corner opposite the trap. 

The whining returned a few times, sometimes for a few seconds, other times over more than a minute. Darkness pooled in the corners of the room, refusing to yield to the candles, which cast wobbly silhouettes onto the walls. The temperature dropped and Izzy wished for the coat he had left downstairs. 

“Looks almost like shadow theatre,” Duff whispered and pointed at the other side of the room. His breath condensed as he spoke. 

“That’s no shadow theatre,” Izzy whispered back. “Look. It’s moving only in one direction.”

Next to him, Duff forced out air. Something crawled along the bottom of the wall. It flickered, manifested and faded, but there was no doubt: it was the contour of a baby on all fours. Izzy was sure the original child hadn’t lived long enough to start crawling, which made the display more uncomfortable than it already was. Shivers ran down his spine while his breath froze in his lungs. The crying was louder now, and from the way Duff’s head moved, he was hearing it, too. 

Izzy sat as motionless as was possible one hand in his pocket where he was hiding the charged energy marble, he would need to spark the fire. Baby or not, this ghost could turn out just as aggressive as any other one. Duff’s bait mixture in the bowl, however, seemed to work. The silhouette moved steadily towards the circle, always close to the wall at first, like an animal seeking out cover. And then, when it had to leave its shelter, the whole scene became even eerier. The shadow lay flat on the floor now, still making crawling movements as it scurried forwards, although there was nothing that gave any hold. 

Duff’s breaths came sharper and louder and a lot more frequently. Izzy could feel the tension that radiated off his body. No wonder, he was coiled up tightly himself. 

When the ghost reached the circle, Izzy gently tucked at Duff’s sleeve without taking his eyes off the scene in front of him. His own breath was coming heavier, too, as he prepared himself for action. Out of the wink of his eye, he caught Duff’s nod. Confirmation that he knew what to do. 

Steadily and stealthily, the ghost baby crawled through the opening towards the bait in the middle of the circle. Its movements slowed and Izzy suddenly feared that it might have noticed something was wrong. For a moment it hovered, half inside the circle, half outside, but then the lure of the bait became too strong. It made a decision and quickly covered the last stretch. 

As soon as its second foot had passed the chalk line, Duff shot forward and closed the circle with a swift stroke. 

“Gotcha!” he exclaimed and threw his arms up in victory. 

His joy, Izzy realized in horror, was premature. The ghost baby, still nothing more than a shadow, spun around. Frantically, Izzy tried to find the mistake while the figure flung itself in their direction. All of a sudden, it wasn’t bound to the ground anymore. Lighting fast, it attacked, flew right out of the circle and up into Duff’s face. Duff screamed, his arms flailing as he fought off a shadow he couldn’t grasp. 

This was his fault! He should have checked the trap. Hell, Duff had asked him to! What had he been thinking, allowing a beginner to set up a ghost trap just to make him happy? Survival first, happiness later, goddammit!

Then he spotted the mistake. At one point the chalk lines didn’t fully meet. The opening couldn’t have been more than a hairsbreadth, but it was enough. 

Duff stumbled around, hands in front of his face to protect his eyes. The ghost didn’t care. It started attacking from above, no longer the shadow of a baby but changing constantly into whatever was most practical to slip past Duff’s hands. 

Izzy had no choice. The trap should be working in principle, but the faulty line meant nothing would be contained inside the circle. 

He flicked the energy marble into the bowl and ducked as the resulting fire column charged up, spreading like a carpet of flames between the blackened ceiling beams. Sparks got caught on the torn wallpaper, made it char first, then burn. Within seconds, the curtains were ablaze. The boiling mixture inside the bowl churned and bubbled and spilled to run over the last undestroyed floorboards, seeped into the cracks and sought further fuel. 

Duff flung himself backwards as the ghost lit up right in front of him. 

For a moment, the shadow returned to its original form, a tiny baby, naked, and red-faced, the white, cheese-like vernix still on its skin, the umbilical cord still attached. Izzy felt nauseous, remembering how he had run up the stairs at Abbie’s first scream, not caring that the midwife had screamed that he should wait until he was called in, and had been presented with something just like this. 

But while Abbie was loved to tiny pieces, this unfortunate baby had never been allowed to take much more than those precious first breaths. 

The ghost burned up and rained in a cloud of ash to the floor, and Izzy had no more time to feel queasy. They had a house to keep from burning down.

“What are we going to do?” Duff yelled, but Izzy was already running towards the sewing supplies. 

The ceiling didn’t offer much nourishment for the flames, the old beams were too hard to easily catch fire. But the floorboards started to smoulder. He tore bales of fabric off the shelves before they caught fire, spread cloth over the burning floor and extinguished whatever flames he could reach. Duff was quick to help them and with a lot of trampling and covering they finally managed to contain the flames. 

In a final act, Izzy tore down the curtains and left them to burn out in a corner while Duff ran down to the kitchen to fetch whatever water was available. The last of the wallpaper sizzled down in a constant rain of grey ash and charred paper while they wetted the room to keep any stray sparks from rekindling the fire. 

“I thought you said we shouldn’t burn down the house,” Izzy said and wiped his face. 

“I’m sorry,” Duff stuttered. “That was my mistake. I … oh my God!” He looked at the destroyed surroundings. 

Izzy, glad they had left their belongings outside, picked up the bowl and almost dropped it as it burned his fingers. He wrapped it into a piece of what might once have been tweed. 

“Things like that happen,” he said. 

“Only ever to me.” Duff rubbed a hand over his face, leaving soot stains on his cheeks. A wad of hair crumbled under his fingers and he frantically felt over his head for more damage. 

“The rest is intact,” Izzy said. 

Then he started to giggle. It was not an overly dignified sound, but he couldn’t help it. The snicker grew into a guffaw and then he was roaring with laughter. Duff watched in consternation, clearly not agreeing that the situation offered itself to unabashed mirth, but then he joined in. And maybe it was another socially maladjusted part of his personality, but he hadn’t had this much fun in ages. 

“Come on,” Izzy flung an arm around Duff’s shoulder and they left the battlefield behind. Back in the kitchen, he tore a sheet of paper of a notepad and wrote a message to the Rileys. 

_Ghost taken care of. Maisie will handle payment. One boy, one girl. Stradlin_

Duff picked up the note and read it through. “This sounds as if you’re demanding their firstborn as payment,” he said. “And second born. Twins? Really?”

“I don’t think I want any more babies than I already have,” Izzy said. Nobody in their right mind would think that babies were adequate payment for anything. They only cost money. 

He reread the note and fixed the problem with a few arrows and lines and an additional _yours, I mean_. Duff read it again and gave him an incredulous look. Then he dictated three polite sentences about how everything had worked out and how payment should be handled and, congratulations, you’re expecting twins, one boy, one girl. It conveyed exactly the same information as before, not one word of additional value, and for the life of himself, Izzy would not understand why this was so much better.

“What about the room?” Duff wrapped his arms around himself. 

“What about it?” Izzy asked back. 

“We destroyed it. And it’s my fault, I mean, shouldn’t we at least say sorry?”

“No, no, no.” Izzy raised both hands to stop him. “They wanted to get rid of a ghost. We got rid of the ghost. Nobody said it would work without collateral damage.”

Duff still looked dubious. “I don’t think they’ll recommend us to their friends.” A worried frown appeared on his forehead which looked funny between all the black smear. 

Izzy reached up and tried to wipe a bit of the soot off Duff’s face, managing only to add more dirt from his own hands. There was a scratch on his temple where the ghost baby had gotten its claws in. He was lucky it had missed his eyes.

“So, what now? Do we clean up the disaster?”

Izzy wondered if he had lost his mind. “We,” he said and tipped his finger against Duff’s chest. “Go to Murphy’s and have wild, and untamed sex.”

A smile spread over Duff’s face, and Izzy felt for him. Twenty-three years and as good as married to a man who felt too old and tired for sex half of the time. His balls had to be blue. Especially after a hunt. Izzy knew the primal needs the adrenaline rush could wake, it still sometimes happened to him after an especially exciting chase. And this, he had to admit, had been exciting. More, it had been fun. For a change, he didn’t feel used-up and worn-out, just wild and reckless and no older than the thirty-three years he had actually spent alive. 

“Come on,” he said and picked up the ghost hunting bag. “Let’s go.”


	4. Wedding Night

Murphy, a man in his fifties with barely a hair left on his head, reacted not as friendly as he usually was when Izzy hammered at one in the morning against the door. He also threatened them with bodily harm should they get soot onto the sheets. But he did provide them with a room and demanded only the – wildly embellished - story of what had gotten them into this state as payment. 

One day Izzy would have to tell Duff about how he had chased a group of stray werewolves out of Murphy’s yard and had earned his eternal gratitude that way. But not tonight. Tonight, he wanted sex, after sex cuddling, sleep. 

Duff closed the door behind them and pointed towards the washstand. 

“Go and wash up, I’ll check if I can get additional water. We’ll never rid of all that soot with half a jar full.”

“What for?” Izzy dropped the ghost hunting bag into a corner. “I’ll only get dirty again, won’t I?”

Duff gave him an unimpressed look. “Wash or get washed. Your choice.”

Then he was gone and Izzy had time to contemplate his fate. Blowing up things always left him a bit horny, but Duff was ten times worse. After a good fight, he developed a serious caveman personality. 

He shivered in anticipation, and for a moment considered taking Duff up on the challenge and see if he would pull through. On the other hand, … better not. He shrugged out of his soot-stained shirt and poured water in the washbowl. The soap was hard and it took him a while to produce enough lather in the cold water, but eventually, there was enough to start scrubbing his face.

Over the course of the last year, Duff had changed. He had grown from barely more than a boy into a man and Izzy wholeheartedly approved.

He still remembered their first time together. Duff had been so unsure. Submissive even, and so eager to please. It had almost put Izzy off the whole affair. What had he been doing, taking this kid to bed whose whole sexual experience consisted of being abused by wealthy old men? Sure, wealth was not anywhere in his own future, but Duff had been depending on him and it had all felt like more of the same. He was too old for Duff, too used up, and far too set in his ways to adapt. 

But one thing he could do for him, the one thing he had always been adept in: Show him that there was a lot more to sex than rolling over and being used. It had hurt to watch Duff’s astonishment, even more than that one time he had performed a similar service for Axl. Axl had simply been inexperienced, but after so much sex, Duff should have known how good it could feel. 

In the end, Duff’s aura had been on fire and Izzy’s fate had been sealed. 

The last year had changed their dynamics completely because somehow, somewhere within all that mess that had culminated in Abbie’s conception, Duff had lost his patience. It had all escalated during one of those days Axl had felt especially pregnant, and Duff had felt especially reminded of who was responsible for that. 

In the evening, when Izzy had expected a round of joyful activities, he had suddenly found himself flattened on his belly, a knee forcing his thighs apart and a pair of strong – very strong – hands on his shoulders. 

“I’m fed up with you,” Duff had growled into his ear while Izzy had grappled for leverage. 

In vain. Duff was not only tall, over the last two years, he had grown into his body. There were one or two nastier tricks that might have gotten Izzy out from under him, but for unknown reasons, he decided to not use them. 

“First every other slag of Foxhill is begging you to stick your dick into her cunt!”

“That’s not my fault,” Izzy had wheezed out, only to be silenced when Duff had moved his knee upwards until it had pressed against his ass. 

“Then ominous ex-lovers I have never even heard about show up and try to pull you into their bed.”

He had wanted to claim that this, wasn’t his fault either, but it was at least partly and so he had only grunted something non-committal into the pillow. 

“Then I have to watch you moan in pleasure just because some vampire lord decides to turn you into his Easter feast.”

“I wasn’t expecting that.” Really, he hadn’t. 

“Shut up! You could have shown some restraint. Nobody asked you to act like a bitch in heat.”

Now, that had stung. And was completely unfair. 

“Next time you can offer your own blood and we’ll see how much restraint you’ll manage,” he had said and had received a slap – really, a slap – onto his ass - as a result. That had almost brought him to the point to use those one or two nastier tricks. Almost. 

“And then, to put the cherry on top, you go ahead and knock up random people.”

‘Random?’ Izzy had thought, while Duff had moved one hand between his shoulder blades, putting more weight onto it than was comfortable. Axl wouldn’t take kindly to being called ‘random people’. 

“Point is…” Duff's mouth had been close enough to feel the airflow inside his ear, “I expected you to realize all on your own that your behaviour is: inappropriate.” The word had been marked with a nip at his earlobe. “Disrespectful.” Another nip. “And absolutely unacceptable. But that was asked too much of your judgment, I suppose. Therefore…” Nip. “It’s urgent time to remind you whom your ass, your dick, your blood, your … whatever … belongs to.”

Yes, Izzy thought, while scrubbing the rest of his body. And that had been the day Duff had discovered that he – sometimes - liked to play the dominant role in their lovemaking. And Izzy had realized that – sometimes - he totally got off on being manhandled. At least if Duff did the manhandling. Because he was utterly cute while he was doing it and nobody could dream of taking it seriously. 

Still, having him act so assertive and confident and sure of himself when not so long ago he had behaved as if he owed Izzy his ass, was worth the bruises Duff’s fingers sometimes left on his hips. 

He was just drying off when Duff returned with another bucket of water. It was urgently needed because whatever was left in the bowl, was a dirty black puddle. Izzy opened the window and tossed it out onto the street. Somebody yelled, but, hell, it was almost two in the morning, and Murphy’s Inn was not located in the most respectable part of Whittlingsfield. A splash of water was far from the worst that could befall the poor man at this time of night. 

“Need help?” he asked hopefully when Duff refilled the bowl and started to strip. 

“No, you can get onto the bed,” he said, almost dismissively. 

Izzy wondered if he should tell him that he was overdoing it a bit, but decided he could just as well enjoy it while it lasted. Latest tomorrow, Duff would be sweet and gentle again and cluck over his lack of body fat. These imperious moments were rare and precious and had to be cherished. 

He settled on the bed, enjoyed the feeling of clean sheets against naked skin, and tested how much the frame creaked. A little bit, but not too much. Then he watched how Duff peeled himself out of his clothes and, man, did he like what he got. The lanky, overgrown puppy was gone and, in its stead, he was presented with six feet three inches of utter, male gorgeousness. Duff had made good use of all the food he devoured. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, long legs with strong thighs. Izzy knew far too well what it meant to end up between them. There was true power involved. 

His mouth felt a little dry as he swallowed and his hand wandered automatically to where he was getting hard. 

“Are you jerking off watching me wash?” Duff asked when he turned around to provide a generous view of towel rubbing over chest. Beautiful chest. With well-defined muscles. Izzy chewed on his lip as his cock made a happy twitch. 

Izzy unobtrusively checked out his aura, looking especially for that tiny swirl that formed each time he … yes, there it was, small and smoky, not fully ablaze yet, but he was confident it would get to that point before the night was over. 

“Any problems with it?” he asked, keeping up the same slow stroking movement from before. Getting hard was one thing. Coming would be embarrassing. 

“Why would I?” Duff let the towel drop to the floor and revealed full-frontal nudity. 

Not embarrassing himself suddenly turned quite a bit of effort. 

Izzy’s eyes automatically wandered down over his sternum, his tight belly to … He swallowed harder. Yes, the state of his body was in accordance with his aura. 

Not in a hurry at all, Duff joined him on the bed. 

“Now,” he said and reached out to wipe a wet strand of hair out of Izzy’s face. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.” He smiled softly while his hand settled on a thigh and squeezed. “First, you’ll lie down and turn over.”

“Make me,” Izzy said. 

“What?” Duff’s expression was priceless. His fault. He had been too sure of himself. 

Most of the time Izzy just indulged him, but tonight he felt a touch of primal desires stir in his own nether regions. Just rolling over and presenting his ass was not going to happen. 

Izzy raised his chin a defiant extra inch, and said again: “Make me.”

Another thing Izzy had realized was that he enjoyed a bit of wrestling before sex. And while he was very fond of losing, he did his best to provide a decent challenge before he allowed himself to be defeated. 

“How old are you?” Duff asked. “Three?”

Izzy raised his eyebrows, making clear he wouldn’t just give in.

“Winner takes all?” he suggested. 

Now Duff’s mouth stood open, too, and he had to force himself to not break into laughter At least it kept him from suddenly embarrassing himself. 

A hand came up and cupped his cheek. Duff had big hands, with long fingers. In fact, everything about Duff was big or long or both and as Izzy was hardly short himself, being the smaller one had been a new experience for him. 

A thumb rubbed over his cheekbone, Duff tilted his head to the side, which made him look like a ruffled, inquisitive bird, and then he kissed him. Not exactly gentle, but Izzy hadn’t expected him to be. Pity. No wrestling. But this was acceptable, too. 

He opened up, gave in to a tongue thrust into his mouth, and just when he thought that maybe this wasn’t only acceptable, but better, Duff grabbed his hips with both hands, pulled him flat onto his back and flipped him over onto his stomach in one swift movement. 

It took Izzy a second to recover from the shock, but then he rounded his back and pushed himself up while working on getting to his knees. Unfortunately, the mattress was too soft and he didn’t find enough hold. Duff seized both his wrists at the same time, ripped them out from under him, and held them tight at the small of his back. Then he straddled him and sat down on his legs and Izzy was effectively trapped. This time, there weren’t any nasty tricks left which might help him get out. He was ultimately stuck and with the way Duff had trapped his hands, magic wasn’t an option either. 

“Looks like all that self-defence training is paying off, huh?” Izzy wheezed. Maybe he should start to eat his extra eggs during breakfast instead of handing them over. 

Duff’s laughter fizzed like champaign. “I told you, you’re a good teacher. Now, where were we? Oh yes. You wanted me to 'make you’. Guess I did.”

He sounded smug, but then, he had reason to be. 

“Agree,” Izzy said. “Let go off my hands?”

“No.”

Ah, too bad, but that would have been too easy. 

“I thought this was our wedding night?” He tried the next route. “I mean, I had envisioned slow, gentle lovemaking. Romance, you know, and …”

All right, he had overdone it and Duff was now laughing hysterically. He still didn’t loosen his iron grip on Izzy’s wrists. Bastard. 

“Are you ready to listen?” Duff asked when he had finally contained his mirth. 

“Totally,” Izzy replied while he tested his leeway. None. 

“Stop twitching with your fingers, I won’t allow you to get them anywhere they can do damage.”

Yes, he was a damned good teacher! Duff closed his thighs a bit more and Izzy felt a cock harden against his ass. His own responded in kind. Caveman-Duff shouldn’t be so hot, but for unknown reasons, he was. 

“Do you know that Axl suggested I should slip you a morpheus amulet?”

“The reason I don’t get any sleep is that each time I try, this screaming baby is waking me up.”

If he kept Duff talking, maybe he would make a mistake. One free hand would be enough and he had reached a point where he was desperate enough to use painful magical stimuli to get the upper hand for at least a moment. This was starting to feel humiliating. 

“The reason you don’t get enough sleep is that for the first half of the night you lie awake and worry about inane shit that might or might not happen in twenty years. And the other half you have nightmares about the same stuff.” 

“You’re exaggerating.” He should mention that they were here so he could sleep. After having sex. Not after having uncomfortable discussions in uncomfortable positions. “And, anyway, what’s that to do with anything?” 

“Axl is right. Something has to happen. As we both agreed that you would just reject the amulet, I suggested a different approach.”

“And that would be?” Izzy tried another round of wiggling, but that only pushed Duff’s really hard dick more firmly against his ass. 

“Simple. You’ll stop all this bullshitting and playing hard to get and do for once as you’re told. You’ll lie still and you’ll relax while I’ll push my dick up your ass and take your bloody hyperactive mind off all your ridiculous worries.”

“You suggested that to Axl?” Izzy asked.

“No, of course not.” He could almost see Duff roll his eyes. 

“My worries are very well-founded,” he said. Because they were. 

“Do you really mean that?” Duff’s voice had developed that little hitch that indicated he would have loved to throw up his arms if he hadn’t needed them to pin down Izzy’s wrists. “Like what we should do if the chickens stop laying eggs?”

“And what will we do?” Izzy asked back. It was a relevant worry with how many eggs Kate used up for breakfast. And did they have to discuss their grocery problems now? While his legs were falling asleep? His dick would surely soon follow. Because Duff was not only tall and beautiful but also bloody heavy. 

“Chicken soup!” Duff exclaimed and tugged at his wrists. “Like everybody does when their chickens stop laying eggs. And then we’ll have not quite as many eggs and eat something else. And one beautiful day, when the next generation has grown up, we’ll have eggs again.”

“Oh.” Izzy had never really wasted any thoughts about the chickens before, but somehow, over the last few months, he had realized that they seemed to practically live on eggs. 

Duff sighed and let go of his hands. He moved to the side and Izzy turned around under his hooked leg.

“Let me fuck you,” Duff said and ran a finger along his side. “Lie down, relax, and let me make you feel good.”

“Help yourself.” Izzy stretched out his arms in an open invitation. 

“Stop worrying.” Duff moved his hand down to his leg and when Izzy readily parted them, he stroked the inside of his thigh. “I mean, what will you do when we’ll get a real reason to be worried? You’ll be all exhausted from all worrying about stuff that is not the least bit worryworthy.”

“That’s not a word,” Izzy replied. 

“It is now. Stop being a brat and roll over.”

For a moment, Izzy thought about saying ‘make me’, but then he gave in. 

“Good boy.” Duff patted his ass. “Leg up a bit and we’ll see if we can’t get a night without you staring holes into the ceiling.”

Izzy admitted defeat, and it didn’t take long until he really stopped worrying about what to do in case the chickens should stop laying eggs. Instead, he listened to the soft creaks of the bed frame while Duff moved in and out and in again in those long, sure strokes of his. 

When they were done, he rolled onto his side. Duff stretched out next to him. Izzy watched the final swirls and twirls as his aura settled, Drawback of being on his belly during the whole activity, he didn’t get to see the final firework. 

Duff’s aura may be weak and non-magical, but he could fire it up quite spectacularly. Sometimes, Izzy was tempted to infuse a drop of his own magic, just enough to bring him across the threshold for a moment and allow him to feel it. 

For Izzy, not being able to feel his own aura would resemble having to say good-bye to one of his senses. One of his most important senses. He would rather do without taste or even hearing than losing his aura. But maybe it was better to not know the sense you were missing instead of getting to experience it once and never again and so he never had suggested the possibility. 

He reached up to feel the crumbly, burned hair to the right of his face.

“Does it look very bad?” Duff asked, crossing his eyes in an attempt to inspect the damage done to his mop. 

Izzy shook his head. “You’ve got enough to cover it up and it always looks as if you cut it with gardening shears anyway, so I doubt anybody will notice.”

“Thank God.” Duff smiled, but it quickly slipped off his face. 

Izzy noticed the direction of his look, towards the inner side of his right upper arm. He let his arm sink to cover the tattoo. Most of the time they were both good at ignoring it, but lately, it was a lot harder to forget its true meaning. That he wasn’t a human being, but rather a piece of cattle with a branding on its ass. 

In fourteen years, he would take his daughter to the administration where they would etch a similar number into her skin, to make her understand what she really was. Or, which was just as likely, so that he could burn down the building to spare her such a fate. 

“You’re not alone in this, you know?” Duff whispered. 

“I know,” Izzy replied. He slipped his head under Duff’s arm, allowing himself a moment of weakness. 

“Good. Close your eyes now and sleep. I’ll take care of the nightmares.”

He tried and he did fall asleep, but he still woke up gasping for air. 

“This is getting worrying,” Duff said while he rubbed his shoulders. “Maybe you should really try the morpheus.”

“Means I might not wake up for Abbie either.” 

Izzy wiped his mouth while he tried to calm down his heartbeat. It was not likely. The morpheus wasn’t a knockout spell, it simply regulated sleep patterns. Axl had suggested trying one on Abbie, too, and while there was absolutely nothing that spoke against it, and desperate mothers hung them over their baby’s cribs all the time, Izzy had been against it. Sometimes amulets did not work perfectly and Abbie would not be able to tell them. What if she had to scream at night, to wake from bad dreams and the morpheus prevented that? 

He knew, of course, that Axl had once slipped one under his mattress, and he also knew that it had worked just as intended. No nightmares, no fitful sleep. He couldn’t even say why he refused to use it when he had downed laudanum without a second thought. Maybe because it was too embarrassing that he should need one at all. 

“Try it,” Duff said and ran his thump gently up and down his spine. “I’ll do baby duty for a week.”

“You will?” Izzy turned around.

“Only if you use the amulet.”

“Oh, come on!” He flopped backwards and looked up at Duff’s earnest face.

“Make your choice, Stradlin.” He gave him one of his sterner looks. “A piece of moonstone under your pillow or dirty nappies and a crying baby.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Izzy replied. But there was nothing to think about. 

Duff resumed his soothing ministrations this time in firm strokes on Izzy’s belly. It was the same pattern that Slash had employed on Abbie and he had to admit: it really felt good. 

“I learned from the best!” he said and bowed down to kiss the skin down there. 

“Really? Who was that? Can’t have been me because I suck at negotiations.”

“Claudius,” Duff replied and Izzy rolled his eyes. 

Just what he needed, another reminder of how that bastard of a vampire lord had pulled him over the barrel.

“Morpheus?” Duff asked. 

“If you insist.” Izzy sighed. “Yes. Morpheus.”


End file.
